Studio Research & Response

Overall, I loved this class and am thankful for the time well spent.  

WHAT IS A PROJECTION?: For this last assignment we are to asses the meaning of a psychological projection, as well as, Identify what we tend to project onto others. A psychological projection is when one subconsciously applies their own negative or weak attributes onto others in regard to their actions. I believe this happens because people easily recognize the things they find most familiar. Thus, if one recognizes actions similar to the manifestation of their own attributes in others they will easily point those out, even if they don't apply to the other person. MY PROJECTION: What I find that I project onto other people is that they're pushovers. Even the strongest of people seem to me to be weak and spineless. I tend to do this because I let way too many disrespectful and disregarding things happen to me in fear that people won't like me. IDEA: I have decided to create a projection that contains many different types of footprints and shoes, so that it looks as if I've been walked over. Or I could find a stock photo of hands pushing someone and I could interact with the projection so that it looks like it's pushing me over the edge.

Dying Beast by Langston Hughes, I believe is a testament is of Hughes' idea of the period immediately after death. The tone of the poem is very still and lifeless. At the start of the piece, Hughes mentions the gathering of buzzards as they sense death. This notation means that life has already ended for the person or things the buzzards gather around. The rest of the poem almost seems like the information gathered by police at a crime scene, such as the direction the deceased was looking and how much they struggled before death. Specifically, he states that whom ever is "Noting the last struggle of flesh under weather, Noting the last glance". All of which are the subjects "last" moments. To end the poem, he emphasizes that the subject did not go peacefully, as he remarks that their last glance is "Of agonizing eye". The last two lines create a somewhat peaceful and hopeful end, in contrast to the rest of the poem, stating that the persons last glance is fixed upon "passing wind and boundless sky". The sky described isn't gloomy or cloudy, as if to indicate that the soul has passed onto heaven or a peaceful afterlife after struggling with agony on earth. Langston Hughes overalls meant to embody the stillness and reflection that death imposes upon us since death is the onset of eternal silence and stillness.

Ambiguous Space: Post-Assignment Above are my 4 final photos for the Ambiguous Space assignment. In order, the photographs represent 1. Luminosity (blue heart), 2. Immersion (Red Soap Water), 3. Translucency (key in water), and 4. Suspension (Red Light Extended in Air). My absolute favorite of these 4 photos would have to be the photo that represents translucency. I love how the light source shines just enough through the vase the key and water are placed in and how the shadow almost overcomes the water. The most difficult part of this assignment was coming up with unique photos. For example, for luminosity, it was difficult because everyone used a similar prop to take pictures of. Therefore it was kind of difficult to come up with a different picture when you may have used the same light as someone else. I think liked finding out how to use the camera in a different way most for this assignment. Learning how to use a slower shutter speed to kind of smear the light in a photograph made the experience very new for me since I didn't know how to do that before. Overall, I feel I did pretty well for this assignment although I wish I would have taken more photographs for each concept, because it was difficult to choose the final photos at the end.

Jennifer Steinkamp: Steinkamp takes art to a whole new level by portraying texture and real life objects through projections and digitally rendered objects. Some of her exhibits display projections of trees and fabrics with amazing depth so much that you'd believe that you can touch them, although, you cannot. Andreas Gursky: On the complete opposite end of the spectrum there's Mr. Gursky. His work is solely photography. Just about all of his spaces that deal with the ambiguity of space are composed of wide and far shots of a multitude of small objects that collectively create an incredible and cohesive photograph. In regard to the quote given by Paul Zelanski, Gursky presents photos of spaces that actually can exist. However, the manner in which his photos are composed creates a unique sight that takes on its on an obscurity all its own. Man Ray: I personally believe the quote given by Zelanski applies best to the Work of Man Ray. His work is composed of photo paper that has been partially exposed multiple times to create silhouettes and photos that simply cannot exist in real life, however, they are vividly displayed. I like to think of his pieces as "Dark Room Collages" because he combines multiple objects onto one piece of photo paper to create interesting and dynamic works.

This assignment was by far the most difficult of the assignments we've done in photography. I honestly started losing new ways to take pictures of my room and my bed so it was difficult to get 9 awesome and varied photos of the same area. Overall, this project is still unfinished. I need to reshoot and find more innovative ways to take photos of my "Nest".

I plan to photograph my room in a way that makes it feel soft, warm, and bright. My lighting will be mostly natural light, which is best in the morning time for me. I also plan to take photos from a very low perspective, to almost make it seem as if a child is walking around my room to convey that my room is a place I can explore, share, and feel like a child in. My biggest issue is trying not to take uninteresting photos since it is an open space that’s also very confined.

When composing my photos I decided to use a spot-lighting technique, which was placed directly in front of the objects or angled directly overhead. This caused the background to disappear and allow the piece to shine in the darkness. I know that consistency was one of  the main goals of this project, so I chose photos that resembled one another in composition. 

This week we were to look over the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto and Edward Weston. Their pieces display the way photography can serve as a sort of time capsule. With the perfect kind of lighting and various angles you can solidify the make up of something and it's place in time. I really enjoy the sharpness and the stillness of the photos Sugimoto has in his collections. There is a special kind of continuity in his work that makes it cohesive in a way that each picture still shines. Its amazing how his photos utilize light to alter the aesthetic of each object or setting. Mundane objects are made into extremely interesting and dynamic artifacts of nostalgia. Their work shows how important and altering light can be to the make up of a photograph.

Refreshing Our View: Post Assignment Response Surprisingly this was a difficult assignment for me because I misconstrued the assignment initially. My initial thought was that we were to take picture of a single object from different vantage points, regardless of the setting. Therefore we could get more interest shots of one object. Also in Haas' work, he displayed a lot of movement, so I thought to emulate that. However, I was wrong. The object of the project was to take a picture of one thing we pass over frequently in the same position. This would force us to find interesting and innovative ways to photograph the object. Pictures above are examples from my first try and my second more accurate shoot of an object. At first I used a key as my subject and placed it in varying and interesting environments to showcase it. For my second corrected shoot, I see a flowerpot in the middle of campus that shows off my skill in changing perspectives.

What I like most about Ernst Haas’ work is that it make you think “What in the World am I looking at?” upon first glance. After a few seconds you figure out that its a mural or pool of water and even then you might still be unsure. There’s something special about the way photography can turn something mundane into something new and dynamic. Ernst Haas’ does that exactly with his photography. Most of his work features something we all have seem or experienced in photography, but the viewpoint is altered or the shutter speed is changed so that something we have seen in everyday life is seen in a new way. Ernst Haas’ work refreshes our view by changing it. For example, pictured above is a picture of water and the rippling of it. Our focus is not on the water itself, but all the components that go into the movement of the water. We can see sharp ripples and prominent shadows across that water, but it also looks smooth at the same time. We are no longer focused simply on the fact that this is water, but we appreciate the intricacies of the water because it is now our main focus. The same thing is done with the other photos pictured above. We are focused so closely on this one subject, that we learn to find new aspects to something we usually don’t look too deeply at. 

Weekender Assignment: Texture- Marian Bantjes & Art Chantry The use of texture in any type of art is highly important because it makes it easy to discern the feeling you're supposed to get from simply looking at a piece of art. Texture conveys a message you can feel without touching or experiencing directly. I It's cool to compare the texture use age of artists Marian Bantjes and Art Chantry. Marian Bantjes uses texture in her work very literally. She uses text in a way that it's almost like thread and she etches words and curves together. She's done macaroni art around text and as pictures above she's used Sugar to create words. Sh takes literal textures and turns them into text and image to create this feeling of intricacy and delicacy. Everything comes together in a very curvilinear fashion so that is subtle. On the other hand, Art Chantry's work is very bold and simple. His work creates a very playful and straight forward image. His work usually consists of smooth one color backgrounds with flashy colors and images atop it. Colors are used to starkly contrast with one another and the distortion of certain images gives them a cartoon like and sometimes scary feel. History feels old and modern all at the same time. There is a contrast between dark, light, rough and smooth to force the eye to the main message in the image, as appears to Bantjes subtle and sometimes hidden approach. Both artists work makes it apparent that your use of texture alone can convey a message and should be analogous to what you want the view to understand.

Post Assignment Journal: Filing, dividing, and Frames within a frame I learned from this first assignment that photography is really hard. It's easy to take a photo of anything, but to position a setting or object on a camera in a way that is both inspiring and aesthetically pleasing is really difficult. I did however like the experience that I got from this assignment. I know that you are the photographer, not the camera. Even when using a cell phone camera you can still take quite beautiful photos. If there's one thing I learned from this assignment is that I shouldn't be afraid to try new things. Initially I was nervous about doing photography because I know that I'm very new to it but learning new things is never bad. If you never try you never know. The photos above are some of my favorites out of my whole set of photos for this assignment. My personal favorite out of all of them would be the photo of the car framed by the hole in a CD disc. It's both aesthetically pleasing and it's different.

10. PVU: This is technically not a sign, but I always pass this whenever I go into the MSC. 

@camooratres